Adesign museum is a museum with a focus on product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. Many design museums were founded as museums forapplied arts ordecorative arts and started only in the late 20th century to collectdesign.
The first museum of this kind was theVictoria and Albert Museum in London.[1][2] In Germany the first museum of decorative arts was theDeutsches-Gewerbe-Museum zu Berlin (nowKunstgewerbemuseum), founded in 1868 in Berlin.[3]
Also some museums ofcontemporary ormodern art have important design collections, such as theMoMA in New York and theCentre Pompidou in Paris. A special concept has been realised in thePinakothek der Moderne in Munich, in which four independent museums cooperate, one of them beingDie Neue Sammlung – the largest design museum in the world.
Today corporate museums like theVitra Design Museum, Museo Alessi or Museo Kartell play an important role.